


Madness burns brighter than any torch

by napalm_and_ink



Category: Darkest Dungeon
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Moral Ambiguity, Non-binary character, Other, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3325277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/napalm_and_ink/pseuds/napalm_and_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>dungeon delving is neither an easy or safe job, and as such, not many people do it, and you can't always pick your comrades in arms; bloody Jesters fight alongside Grave Robbers, Occultists alongside priests, and crusaders alongside Highwaymen, with nothing but each other and a few pieces of steel or cloth between them and death.</p><p>but as much as they loathe and depend on each other, their interactions are rarely so predictable as one would expect...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a box of matches at the bottom of the rabbit hole

Out of all of them, you only hate Reynauld; not because he's a crusader, not because he can't seem to understand that discretion is the better part of valor, not even because he's a self righteous prick. It's because he tries to justify his theft from the party as something other than self-interest. He says it's being tithed to the church, but you know that's a load of shit. You've looked into it with Junia, the vestal, and while Reynauld does donate to the abbey, there's no uptick when he's been going on a lot of expeditions compared to when he's been staying behind. If you weren't a criminal yourself, you would drag him to the stockades and leave him there to rot until he's ready to to reimburse the rest of the party for when he stole, but until your receive the pardon your employer promised you upon completion of your quest you will steer clear of any place of law.

You get along with everyone else pretty well though, even the bounty hunter, who under different circumstances would be your foe. Junia is more forgiving and personable then most Vestals, to the point of being almost like a normal person. you have a professional respect for the Grave Robber, Dana, as you are both people who operate outside the law. Myrna, the Hellion, was while admit-ably rather gruff at times, is a good and loyal friend to any who take the time to befriend her. The Plague Doctor and the Jester were a singular unit, two sides of the same kind, morbid coin; the Jester is the outgoing half, as one would expect, but there is another side to the fool than the smiling mask and camaraderie, something dark, cold, and cunning that scares you to your core. the Doctor is the inverse, an introvert with an icy, calculating outside, is quite nice once you get to know her. neither of them will divulge their name. the Occultist, Amir, is always happy to help a friend, be their problem spiritual, eldritch, or mundane, or at least lend a kind word if he can't provide sufficient aid. the Bounty Hunter's name was Ulf; a Norseman who, like his namesake animal, was incredibly cunning and fiercely loyal to his friends and allies.

your name is Dismas, and you're a highwayman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short first chapter, but I wrote this late at night while people were playing Magic: the gathering behind me, making it a bit hard to write an epic halfway off the top of my head
> 
> I intend to get chapter two up tomorrow if I can, but timing is not always favorable for this during the week


	2. powder horn, meet firing pan

The fiendish hogs that hide in the warrens are the scariest thing you've ever fought, you decide. especially the wretches, twisted, ill-formed, half-undead _things_ that spew foul ichor on you at every opportunity. the swine shrug off vial after vial of noxious mixtures, and don't even slow when wounded; indeed, they seem to get stronger and angrier the closer they are to death. What's worse, is that they bring out something in your other half, the Jester, that you only ever saw once before: in the fight with the necromancer apprentice, when the rest of the party was at death's door. It's something cold, and cunning, and horrible that scares even indomitable Reynauld.

 Your brief reverie is interrupted by a large rusted cleaver careening towards you. with a wet _thunk_ the blade sank into your shoulder, leaving a deep cut that bled profusely even after the blade left it. You dart back and fumble for a vial of coagulant to staunch the flow. The beast tensed for another lunge, but before it could spring but it was halted by a thunderclap and a fresh hole in it's skull, courtesy of Dismas' pistol. Now having time to search properly, you quickly find the right bottle, uncork it, and pour the stinging solvent on your shoulder. Though it closed the wound, it rather notably hurt almost as much as the cut had. yeah, this one needs to go back to the drawing board for sure. You turn to rejoin the fight just as Reynauld dispatched the last two wounded hogs using a rebuke charged with zealous hatred, a favorite attack of his. The Jester reappeared from a side tunnel, suit stained in blood too dark to be human, and a crude drum slung over the left side. a chuckle escaped from under the fool's mask, but there was no warmth to it, only cold humor.

"Come comrades, we must press on, there is evil afoot and if we linger here too long it will overwhelm us." called Reynauld, lighting a new torch to replace the one the hogs had knocked into the muck when they ambushed us, and pressing further down the dark and dank hallway. his boots ring on the cracked stone floor, and the plates of his armor clank together with every step, defeating any attempt at stealth. Nothing in this region, however, was foolish enough to bar your passage after what happened to the hogs.

this is your second day (if one could even call the brighter hours that in this tainted land) in the dungeon, and everyone seemed to be near the end of their rope; you only have a few rooms left to clear and then you can leave this place and head back to the relative safety of town.

 

 

 ~~your name is______________ and~~ you're a Plague Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit rushed, but soon I'll be back on a more normal schedule and I'll hopefully start adding better, longer chapters
> 
>  
> 
> -Napalm_and_Ink


	3. from the frying pan to the fire, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope and fate, being every the twin pendulums, must always swing down once they have swung up, and care little for those who are crushed by the weight and momentum of their back-swing. The bloody toll of hubris is paid, and the cold nights close in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying a new format in this arc, but for those of you who prefer the previous format, don't worry, that will be coming back within the next few chapters, which should be much less delayed than this one was, universe willing

In retrospect, it was in idiotic decision to lead my men out into the wilds beyond the hamlet, and a foolish decision to have trusted so much in the assurances of the Heir and his veteran adventurers.

 

It all _started_ innocently enough; after a campaign of successful missions into the the depths of the monster-infested halls, caverns, and glades of the lands surrounding the hamlet, there had been a surge of new adventurers into the hamlet, all eager to win fame and fortune in the Heir's service, and a blessing from the Light that was. Dismas and Reynauld had convinced the Heir and I that it would do the hamlet's defenders good to venture out with an expedition, to learn from experience how best to defeat the menagerie of enemies that lie beyond the edges of the hamlet's clearing. I, as captain of the town watch, was obligated to lead this party, and so tentatively agreed to organizing a group of four volunteers, two from the Day Watch and two from the Night, and set out alongside a party that was being sent into the twisting, corrupted forest to thin the ranks of the fungal zombies, and cow the bandits to remind them of the folly that raiding the hamlet would surely be, now that its defenders are more steadfast and better equipped to do battle with them.

 

Though the fighting that followed, from pale-gold dawn to scorched-orange sunset, was brutal and bloody, nothing had seemed amiss (well, not more amiss than usual, at least) until we began to near the hamlet. the party was haggard and much in need of a reprieve from the horrors that lurk just beyond the torchlight; every blade in your party's arsenal was dull, every chestplate dented, and every gun short of powder and shot, and morale was in equally rough shape. though the vestal's healing prayers and the holy light she summoned kept the party from falling apart, there are still limits to what one woman with a holy tome and a mace can do.

 

Once we had reached the approach to the hamlet's clearing, we began to see signs of large groups moving through- tracks, hacked aside branches, discarded scraps of cloth and broken blades, and the occasional patch of stakes or caltrops to deter pursuit. we were a few hundred meters from the edge of the woods, though that means little difference for visibility, when Dismas took off into a sprint, weapons drawn and shouting for us to ready ourselves and hurry after him. when we finally came crashing through the clearing with our weapons at the ready, we were met with a sight of carnage.

 

In the fading light of dusk, the hamlet smoldered. many of the buildings were shattered or burnt, and what few remained standing were either infested with fungus, or seemed to be held up by nothing more than the battle-word barricades at their windows and doors. a semi-circle of splintered wood and cracked stone lay at the center of the hamlet, where it seems some of the town's defenders had made a desperate stand at the foot of the Ancestor's statue, further evidenced by the bodies strewn about both behind and in front of it, and in the aftermath of the chaos, it was impossible to tell who had died fleeing the failing defensive position, and who had fell standing their ground with their faces toward the foe. almost none of the bodies, however, lay alone in the crimson mud; every lone defender, seemed to have taken at least one of their attackers down with them. every few meters one could find a pile of slumped figures, where watchmen and farmers, craftsmen and adventurers, had died standing back to back against the tide, and where any two blades were raised together, and wherever a pair of shields were locked side by side in the whirling press of the melee, a score of more foe-men lay in deathly disarray around them.

 

though the defenders took a bloody toll for every soul that fell, and had turned back the assault of beasts, corpses, brigands, and abominations, the cost to the hamlet's defenders was just as great, in value if not in raw numbers. the remaining defenders were a ragged and bloody lot, though the implications of the shortness of able bodies masks the impressive amount of those who survived the battle, for the wounded outnumbered the dead, at least at the night's beginning, before their injuries had much time to worsen, and before our medical supplies had much time to dwindle, though they never needed much time to do so in the first place.

 

in the late hours of the night, once we had organized the survivors who were holed up in the tavern, the guardhouse barracks, and the abbey, I sat down with the most senior of our rapidly decreasing number, and we set to work developing a plan to ensure our survival through the coming weeks

 

-excerpt from the memoirs of knight-captain  ~~~~Celestine Goldshire


End file.
